Synthetix (sUSD) is a protocol that issues and trades synthetic assets called Synths on the Ethereum network. Synths are the assets produced against the value of crypto assets that are staked as collateral. 

In simpler terms, Synthetix platform aims to allow users to trade, borrow, or stake various crypto assets, commodities, and equities by creating these synthetic assets tied to the price of real-world assets. These synthetic assets create digital stablecoins in the same way as United States Dollar Coin, and Synthetix also has its own stablecoin called sUSD, a synthetic for traditional currency USD. 

Further, sUSD aims to balance the supply and demand of the coin to indicate the price of the underlying asset getting pegged to, like for sUSD, the platform would monitor US dollar. Apart from cryptocurrencies, Synthetix also seeks to consist of synthetics of several non-crypto assets like oil, EUR, USD, Amazon, Tesla, gold, silver, and Netflix, all based on blockchain technology. 

Synthetix Network Token (SNX) is the native ERC-20 token of the Synthetix platform, used to collateralize synthetic assets after being locked in a smart contract to issue synthetic assets. Smart contracts are just like regular contracts; however, instead of being drafted on paper, these contracts run in the form of protocols on blockchain.

The following platforms seek to use the Synthetix ecosystem:

Kain Warwick founded Synthetix as a project called Havven, and the project introduced a stablecoin on June 11, 2018, known as nUSD. In December 2018, the Havven project was renamed Synthetix, a platform that represents more than 20 synthetic assets that further define traditional currencies, commodities like gold and silver, and crypto-assets.